1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods for computer-based customer support, and more particularly, to systems, methods, and to products for automatically updating software products from diverse software vendors on a plurality of end-user, client computer systems.
2. Background of Invention
The typical personal computer contains various categories of software products, such as operating system files, utilities, applications, and device drivers, code libraries, and other forms of computer readable or executable information. In some of these categories, such as applications, the personal computer may contain numerous programs in various subcategories. For example, a user may have one or two word processing applications, several graphics applications, and numerous games. Most of these products will come from different software vendors. As used herein xe2x80x9csoftware vendorsxe2x80x9d includes any entity that distributes software products, even if the entity also manufactures or distributes hardware or other non-software products. These software vendors frequently improve their products, by adding new features, or by fixing known problems, and make these software updates available to their users. These updates may or may not be free.
There are at least three significant problems that the vendors and users face in attempting to provide these updates to the user. First, vendors face difficulty and costs in attempting to inform users of their products that the updates are available, and users experience similar difficulties in attempting to ascertain what updates are available. Vendors typically send out mailings to registered users, place advertisements in relevant trade journals and magazines, and engage in other promotional activities.
For all of these efforts, many users may remain unaware of the many software updates applicable to their systems until they encounter problems and contact the vendors"" technical support organizations. Other users only learn about updates by searching the Internet or on-line services for solutions to their technical problems. Just the shear magnitude of the problem of updating all software products can be overwhelming. Given that a user will have many software products from numerous vendors on her computer, it would be nearly impossible for the user to frequently monitor all of the available distribution channels, journals, Internet forums, and the like, to determine for which of the many software products there are updates available.
For example, some vendors maintain sites on the World Wide Web, or electronic bulletin boards (BBS""s) that include information about current updates and products, and enable a user to download such updates. However, such sites are obviously dedicated to a single software vendor, and provide information only about that software vendor""s products, and certainly not about the products of numerous other vendors that may be interest to a given user. Thus, the user would have to search the Internet, and possibly online services, to determine which vendors have such sites. The user would likely to have visit each of these sites individually and determine what software updates are available from each of them. Similarly, even though some on-line services include forums or other mechanisms where users can learn about available updates, this still places the burden on the user to actively seek out this information. Directories or search engines on the Internet, such as Excite, Yahoo, Lycos, or Infoseek merely provide links to software vendor sites, but do not generally attempt to systematically determine which software updates are available, and provide this information to the user, let alone actually update the software on the user""s machine.
Another problem is that even once an update has been identified, there is the need to install it in the user""s computer. Many users purchase the software updates by mail order, or the like, and receive them on floppy diskettes. Other users may download the software updates via Internet from the computers of the software vendors, or from on-line services. In any of these cases installing a single update can be a tedious, time-consuming and error-prone process for many users due to the various formats and installation procedures required. Installing updates for all of the numerous software products on a user""s system on a regular basis would be even more difficult and time consuming for the typical user.
Finally, many users have concerns about their privacy, and are often resistant to revealing complete information about their software configurations to one or more vendors. However, even for a single vendor, information about which of the vendor""s products are installed on a user""s computer system, and system configuration information is necessary for determining which updates are applicable to the user""s computer system. For example, a certain software update to an accounting program from vendor A might be applicable if the user has a printer from vendor B, and a different software update is applicable if the printer comes from vendor C. The user might not want to let each vendor know about all the components on their system, but this configuration information is necessary to ensure the correct software updated is installed. Still, users are resistant to the prospect of a single vendor storing information profiling the software components that reside on their computer systems.
In summary, from the perspective of an individual vendor, the problems are identifying and notifying every user of the vendor""s software of the availability of updates to the software on a timely and useful basis, and ensuring that the proper software updates are installed. From the perspective of the individual user, the problems are systematically and easily identifying which updates are currently available for every piece of software on her system, and resolving the technical difficulties in obtaining and installing such updates.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system that automatically determines which software updates from numerous diverse software vendors are currently available, and which are applicable to a given user""s computer system, and installs such user selected ones of such updates on the user""s computer. Further, it is desirable to provide such a system without abridging the privacy of users by obtaining and storing system profile information.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system and method that automatically updates software components from numerous diverse software vendors on the computer systems of a plurality of end users. The system includes at least one database that stores software update information, for a plurality of software products manufactured by diverse software vendors. The database is maintained by a service provider on a service provider computer system. Alternatively, the database may be maintained by a set of software vendors of the software products in association with the service provider. The software update information in the database specifies the software update program or files and their network location on the computer system of the software vendors, which computer systems are connected over the network to the service provider computer system. The database further stores information that describes an installation process for installing the software update on a user""s computer.
In the preferred embodiment the network is the Internet to which the diverse software vendor computer systems are connected, and make available updates for their software. The network location provided in the software update information is specified by one or more universal resource locators (URL). Thus, the update database does not store the software updates themselves, but information that is used to access the software from computer systems of the original vendors. In addition, the software update information includes a format description associated with specific installation programs or actions needed to install the software update.
On each user computer, or synonymously client computer, operating in accordance with one embodiment of the invention there is provided a client application that periodically connects over the network to the update database of the service provider computer system. The client application automatically downloads a portion of the database to the client computer, preferably to update a mirror of portions of database. From client database, the client application determines which software updates are applicable or relevant to the user""s computer. This is preferably done by first determining the products that are installed in the client computer, and determining for each of these whether there is an update available for a more recent version of the software product than that installed on the client computer. The applicable software updates are identified to the user.
The user selects various software updates for installing on the client computer. Either the client application or the service provider computer then uses the network location specified in the database to connect to the computer system of the software vendor and download the software update from there to the client computer. The client application uses the format information to determine the appropriate installation process associated with the software update, and installs the software update using the proper installation process. During the installation process, the client application monitors all changes made to the client computer, such as the deletion, addition, or alteration of files or directories. The client application stores the state of the client computer prior to these changes. This may be done by saving copies of files to be altered or deleted, and noting pathnames of files or directories to be added. Once the installation is complete the stored state information, such as the copied files, is compressed and archived, and identified as being associated with the just installed software update. This stored state information allows the client application to xe2x80x9cundoxe2x80x9d the installation and restore the client computer to its state prior to the installation, including restoring any files that were deleted or altered. Multiple xe2x80x9cundoesxe2x80x9d of multiple installations may be accomplished.
Where the vendor charges for the software update, the service provider computer may intermediate between the software vendor""s computer and the client computer to enable an electronic payment by the user to the software vendor. When the electronic payment is authorized, the client application downloads the software update and completes the installation as described. Additionally, the service provider computer may authenticate the software update and check to ensure that it is not corrupted, for example by computer viruses.
The service provider periodically updates the update database, monitoring URL information to ensure that it correctly identifies the location of software updates, identifies new software updates, or new products for inclusion in the database, and the like.
The above system allows numerous users to periodically and automatically update the software products on their computers from diverse software vendors through a single, update mechanism. The users need not invest the time and energy to identify currently available updates, nor engage in the potentially difficult process of manually (even electronically) obtaining and installing the software updates, and properly configuring their computer systems. Rather, all of the relevant information about the currently available updates is maintained for subscribing users in the service provider""s database. Further, the above system provides these benefits without directly storing the software updates themselves, which would be undesirable for the service provider due to vast memory requirements needed for handling software updates from hundreds, or potentially thousands of software vendors, and the difficulty of ensuring that all such software updates were current.
As a further aspect of the invention, the update database stores promotional information for various software products in addition to the software update information. The promotional information includes product literature, advertising literature, technical information, product demonstration software and the like. This information is categorized into a number of product categories. Like the software update information, the promotional information itself is not stored in the update database, but rather, a network location is stored for each item of promotional information.
The client application determines on the client computer the product categories of the software products therein, and then selects promotional information from certain product categories, and retrieves this promotional information from the network location information associated with it. This enables the client application to direct promotional information to the client computer based on the software products thereon, and hence the user""s likely product interests, without 1) storing large quantities of promotional information directly; and 2) disclosing the actual contents of the user computer to third parties.
The update database of software update information is preferably maintained by a supplier of the client application, who also maintains the service of providing software updates. This database is created by engaging with numerous software vendors to provide information for software updates of their products to the service provider. Preferably, the software vendors provide the service provider information describing the software update, including version information, file formats, configuration information, and network location.
Alternatively, software updates may be identified by systematically and periodically searching the Internet to identify the software vendors who are providing updates to their software products. These updates are then downloaded from the software vendor""s Internet sites, and one or more network locations (URL) are identified for obtaining the download. The downloaded software update is then installed on one or more target computers as typically configured by end users. The format of the software update is determined, along with the network location of the software update, and other descriptive information, such specific configuration actions to be taken during installation of the software update, useful descriptive text, and the like.
In another aspect of the present invention there is provided a client application that interacts with the update database. The client application is provided on each of a plurality of client computers. The client application is executed on a periodic basis and connects to a update database as described above to perform the operations of downloading the portions of the database, determining the relevant software updates to be retrieved, retrieving same from their network locations, installing the software updates on the client computer, and removing installed updates if desired.
In yet another aspect of the present invention, information about software updates or software products may be provided by the service provider to a client computer by email, upon request for email notification by a user. Users who subscribe to the service provider""s service indicate the software products in which they are interested, either directly, or indirectly by their actions in using the service. As new software updates, or software products become available, the service providers determines which one match a particular user""s interests, and notifies the user of such updates or products by email. The notification includes the network location of where the software product or software update is available. The user can then approve the installation of the product or update, and use the client application to download and install the software update or product.